Ukraine Over the Edge

The Ukrainian crisis that dominated headlines in fall 2013 was decades in the making. Two great schisms shaped events: one lay within Ukraine itself, with its western and southeastern parts divided along cultural and political lines; the other, at the international level, was driven by geopolitical factors real and perceived. Competition for Ukraine between Russia and the West--epitomized by NATO and EU expansion to Russia's borders--exacerbated Ukraine's internal divisions.

   This study focuses on the historical background and complex causality of the crisis, from the rise of the mass demonstrations on Kiev's Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) to the making of the post-revolt regime. In the context of a "new cold war," the author sheds new light on the role of radical Ukrainian nationalists and neofascists in the February 2014 snipers' massacre, the ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia's seizure of Crimea and involvement in the civil war in the eastern region of Donbass.